I am writing to suggest that Harvard make some reference to William James' views regarding laughing gas and the 'anesthetic revelation' in your online biography of the man at
James urged philosophers to use such substances to study reality2, and Harvard's omission of that fact reads to me like academic censorship on behalf of Drug War sensibilities. As someone who has written literally hundreds of essays on such topics, I am convinced that the Drug War ideology of substance demonization leads to suicides by denying fast-working feel-good medicine like laughing gas to the severely depressed -- under the apparent theory that suicide is actually better than 'drug use.'3 In the same way, we use brain-damaging shock therapy on the depressed, apparently under the view that it is better to damage their brains than to let them use 'drugs.'4
Is this not insanity itself?
The fact is that there are hundreds of drugs that elate and inspire, some of which have almost NO addictive potential whatsoever (like the phenethylamines of Alexander Shulgin5) - and yet Drug Warriors are implicitly telling us that death is preferable to their use - death -- this despite the fact that Big Pharma drugs advertised on prime-time television report death itself as a potential side effect. Besides, surely even chemical dependency is better than the death of a suicidal individual. Americans clearly think so, insofar as 1 in 4 American women take a Big Pharma drug every day of their life.
I guess we must abide by tyrannous drug laws, but that does not mean that we have to rewrite history to make it seem like those laws are just, or that the Drug War is some sort of natural baseline from which to study mind and mood. Nothing could be further from the truth. So I urge you to revise Harvard's online biography of William James to mention his work with laughing gas.
Sincerely Yours.
PS I write because I have a suicidal relative who recently visited the ER for severe depression - and it frustrates me that the modern protocol is to withhold from her anything that would clearly work. It seems to me that the modern physician's job is first and foremost to vindicate the materialist approach to mind and mood medicine (by prescribing 'meds' inspired by the doctrines of reductionism and behaviorism) and only secondarily to help the suicidal. But the suicidal need decisive help NOW, in the form of rapid-acting elation and inspiration, not theoretical help that might kick in, more or less, in a month or two if they're lucky.
PPS I am the only philosopher who has formally protested the FDA's recent plan to treat laughing gas as a 'drug.' I did this out of respect for William James and on behalf of academic freedom. I tried to encourage some Harvard philosophers to join me, but no luck. This is why I was disturbed to see that the Harvard bio of William James does not even mention laughing gas. I fear that the Drug War has led to censorship at Harvard, or at least to self-censorship.
PPPS I should add that I am a 66-year-old philosophy major and chronic depressive. I have published hundreds of philosophical essays against the War on Drugs over the last six years at abolishthedea.com. During that time, I have written hundreds of personal letters to American and British philosophers on this subject and have yet to receive a reply from any of them. It seems to be 'more than people's jobs are worth' to discuss the philosophy of drug use - or to criticize the role of materialist science when it comes to mind and mood medicine -- but if you're an exception to this rule, I invite you to visit my site. My most recent essay on these topics is entitled: 'How the Myth of Mental Illness Supports the War On Drugs'6 (link below). I share physicist David Bohm's concern that modern psychology is still under the obsolete thrall of behaviorism, thanks to which it ignores all positive uses of drugs - whether suggested by anecdote, history and/or the common-sense motivations of incentives and anticipation. In this way, our modern psychologists give a veneer of 'science' to the DEA's lie that time-honored medicines have no positive uses whatsoever, even though drugs like Soma, coca and opium have helped inspire entire religions in the past.
You will never believe this, but Professor Nock has not yet seen fit to vouchsafe me a response viz. my scruples about Harvard censorship. To be fair, however, I imagine that he's struggling with the issue. I can sense that he is losing sleep over the implicit message that he might be sending via a non-response. "Shall I stop ghosting Brian and face Drug War censorship head on," quoth Matt, "or shall I not rather steer the course of mainstream propriety and continue pretending that Drug War prohibitions represent a natural baseline from which to study reality?"
Wait, the vision is becoming clearer. I see a wife... or a significant other of some kind... approaching our Matt.
"Stop beating yourself up," quoth he... or is it a she... or even a they? "Brian cannot expect you to discuss drug-related issues openly with him -- especially given the fact that he lacks the tenured status that, time out of mind, has constituted the minimum entry-level barrier for access to the Ivory Tower stalwart. And believe me, mister, you are as stalwart as it comes when it comes to the Ivory Tower, or my name is not..." ...whatever his or her name is, which, I cannot quite make out that level of detail in my otherwise inspired reveries. "I mean, look at you, you are chairperson of the Harvard Psychology Department, for Peter's sake!"
But what's this?
I see Matt shaking his head with doleful vigor, as who should say, "Yes, but do I deserve my status, given the fact that I am brazenly ignoring the psychoactive legacy of the very man thanks to whom I have this job?!"
It makes one feel kind of bad, to be putting our professor through this probable wringer -- to be forcing him to face these probable demons and to catechize himself in these probably derisive terms.
Why, it's probably terrible of me!
William James
William James (1842-1910) is considered the founder of American psychology. He urged philosophers to study the effects of substances like laughing gas for what they could tell us about reality writ large. And yet the bio of the man on the website of the Harvard Psychology Department fails to even mention this 'call to arms.' And so Harvard rewrites history to jibe with drug war prejudices, just as the Thomas Jefferson Foundation refuses to discuss the fact that it helped federal agents confiscate the founding father's poppy plants in a 1987 raid by Ronald Reagan's DEA. Existing institutions are all about normalizing the drug war by pretending that it does not exist. This saves our materialist psychologists and philosophers at Harvard from having to confront James' unpopular holistic views with rational arguments of their own. Instead, they can simply declare a victory for materialism by pretending that those views of his do not even exist! This is just one of the many reasons why I say that we live in a make-believe world today thanks to drug prohibition, one in which all of our major institutions ignore the role that prohibition has played -- and continues to play -- in skewing our views of reality.
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies." -- Groucho Marx
Scientists are not the experts on psychoactive medicines. The experts are painters and artists and spiritualists -- and anyone else who simply wants to be all they can be in life. Scientists understand nothing of such goals and aspirations.
I think we should start taking names. All politicians and government officials who work to keep godsends like psilocybin from the public should be held to account for crimes against humanity when the drug war finally ends.
Drugs are not the enemy, ignorance is -- the ignorance that the Drug War encourages by teaching us to fear drugs rather than to understand them.
Pro-psychedelic websites tell me to check with my "doctor" before using Mother Nature. But WHY? I'm the expert on my own psychology, damn it. These "doctors" are the ones who got me hooked on synthetic drugs, because they honor microscopic evidence, not time-honored usage.
The hypocrisy of the drug warrior consists in this: that they insist on drug control but they despise gun control.
Many in the psychedelic renaissance fail to recognize that prohibition is the problem. They praise psychedelics but want to demonize others substances. That's ignorant however. No substance is bad in itself. All substances have some use at some dose for some reason.
America never ended prohibition. It just redirected prohibition from alcohol to all of alcohol's competitors.
New article in Scientific American: "New hope for pain relief," that ignores the fact that we have outlawed the time-honored panacea. Scientists want a drug that won't run the risk of inspiring us.
"Just ONE HORSE took the life of my daughter." This message brought to you by the Partnership for a Death Free America.
Buy the Drug War Comic Book by the Drug War Philosopher Brian Quass, featuring 150 hilarious op-ed pics about America's disgraceful war on Americans
You have been reading an article entitled, How Harvard University Censored the Biography of William James: an open letter to Psychology Professor Matthew K. Nock, published on March 11, 2025 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)
ear Professor Nock1,
You have been reading an article entitled, How Harvard University Censored the Biography of William James: an open letter to Psychology Professor Matthew K. Nock, published on March 11, 2025 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)
